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Asking great questions is an important partner skill to good listening skills.  In this season of political upheaval paired with many opportunities to gather socially, questions of genuine interest will be a valuable tool.  To elaborate we are re-posting our original blog on this topic from November 4th of last year. Listening ( “Go-To” Skill #1 ) and asking questions of genuine curiosity (“Go-To” Skill # 2) are the keys to the kingdom of understanding and working well wit

Today is the fourth and last in a series of posts examining the skill of listening and its importance to meaningful work in groups.  I originally discussed listening in a post about a year ago which you can find here .  The first week I wrote that listening requires us to quiet our minds. The second week I offered physical postures that support and convey an attitude of attentive listening. The third week  I suggested ways to test that you heard the speaker’s intended messag

Over the past two weeks I have been revisiting listening, a skill I examined in a blog post a year ago. Listening is critical for productive group problem solving. Two weeks ago, I wrote about quieting our minds so we can focus on the person speaking. Last week , I explored behaviors that we can adopt to both support our focus and encourage the speaker to speak by showing a listening posture. This week, I submit that our listening improves when we test our understanding of wh

Since August, I have been sharing key practices for joining with others to productively address complex problems we face in our lives.  Just over a year ago, I wrote about listening and its value in problem solving.  Listening is such an important skill to bring to our work with others that last week and over the next few weeks I am giving attention to four characteristics of good listening. In addition to quieting oneself to focus on the speaker, listening involves responsiv

Since August, I have been sharing key practices for joining with others to tackle the complex problems we face in our lives at work and in our communities.  A year ago, I spent time exploring specific skills that support those practices.  One of those skills is listening.  Listening is such an important skill to bring to our work with others that over the next four weeks I want to give attention again to four characteristics of good listening. Listening involves being quiet

I love this cartoon. Being in the moment means staying present with whatever happens, including getting a phone call. It does not mean conforming to some thought or image about what the present moment is or is supposed to be. This is what mindfulness meditation is all about: becoming aware of what is actually happening, right now. And, when you are aware of it, handling it with care and skill. Such presence helps us get stuff done with others. When we want to accomplish somet

Recently I had a diagnostic procedure that required being in a hospital. I was nervous about the procedure and what I might learn from it. (I am fine.) As the nurses and anesthetist met with me beforehand, I relaxed and felt safe in their care. By using my name, making eye contact, asking questions, and listening to my responses, they created a sense of relationship. Because of this I felt calmer and my thinking was clearer. A difficult situation became almost an enjoyable on

Are you aware of how you react when you interact with people who differ from you?  Do your reactions differ depending on their race or gender? How might your reactions be influencing your behavior with them? According to neuroscientists at New York University , our biases influence how we “see” people’s faces. These visual biases unfortunately tend to conform to and confirm existing stereotypes of them. These biases then influence our behavior. In this recent study, men, and

Perhaps the most serious collateral damage from this year’s can’t-wait-until-it’s-over election season might be our ability to bridge differences. The ability to bridge differences and converse constructively is essential to the survival of our organizations and communities, our democracy, and, most likely, the world as we know it. By “constructive,” I mean conversing in ways that strengthen our capacity to get good things done together. Although survival for our long-ago anc

My Dad worked for Coca-Cola Bottling Company many years ago. If he were alive today, he would likely be surprised at the meaning I am about to connect with this old advertisement.  Notice how happy this woman is with her glass of soda? She’s off to a fresh start! What if we could get refreshed and off to a fresh start by simply pausing for a moment to connect to the current, living moment, and/or to the larger context in which this moment occurs? In last week’s blog , I desc

Some days it feels like I am riding the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, a high-speed train): constantly thinking and doing. It reminds me of a train ride from Paris to southern France I took a few years ago. I got there quickly, but I missed the scenery along the way. As on the train, so in life, when you constantly think and do, the scenery gets hazy, indistinct. You are out of contact with what is living inside and around you. In this uninterrupted flow of thoughts and action

At a meeting of 20 scientists and 6 lab technicians in a research and development company, one of the technicians, Sharon, unexpectedly bursts into tears. She describes how “pulled apart” she feels by all the competing needs and priorities of the scientists, and she wails, “I am so frustrated that I can’t do the quality of work I want to do because there is just too much of it, and there is no way to prioritize anything.” Fortunately, the manager had been developing self-awa

Eighty people sit in groups of four around small tables spread across a gymnasium floor. The topic is water, always a touchy subject in California. This time, however, the problem isn’t having too little water; it’s having too much. The state “owns” the water and grants rights to use it to various agencies throughout the state. There’s a catch, however: If you don’t use what you’ve been licensed to use, you can lose rights to the water. The challenge in this rural region, nes

What do you want to accomplish at work or in your community? Who do you need to work with to get it done? What’s the most effective way to interact with them to achieve your goal? You prime how you interact with others by clarifying your intention towards them. Is your intention simply to look good, appear smart, and dazzle people with your brilliance?  Is it to convince them of the rightness of your goal and how they should help? Or, is your intention to share your idea as

If you are reading this blog, you are probably someone who likes getting things done at work or in your community. For example, you want to improve customer service or make the street on which you live safer for the kids who play on it. You also know that to get things done you need to work with others. This can be a frustrating endeavor. People have different perspectives, ways of working and communicating, and don’t listen as we would like them to. You might have moments wh

Instead of dog droppings, my longtime friend and teacher Angeles Arrien puts it more elegantly: “Watch your wake.”  A “wake” is the wave pattern or turbulence on the water’s surface caused by a moving object, like a boat.  If you have been in a boat on a lake when a larger and/or faster boat moves past you, you know how much disturbance exists in its wake. In recent meetings, I was reminded about the impact people have when they do not watch their wake (or, pick up their dog

When Roger James and I teach listening skills, we ask people to look at a list of “non-listening behaviors.” The list includes thirteen actions including the usual culprits of interrupting, advising or persuading, and pseudo-questions (“Don’t you think that…?”) When we ask people if there are any surprises on the list they invariably ask why “agreeing or disagreeing” is on the list of non-listening behaviors. Here’s why. When you listen you are trying to understand what the p

I recently had the privilege of speaking at the New Leaders Council Annual Retreat in Washington, DC. One of the other speakers was Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama. In her informal talk, she said, “Talent is ubiquitous and opportunities are few.”  I agree with the first part of her statement and want to challenge the second. If “opportunities” means positions, like an elected or non-elected official or a manager or supervisor, I agree. However, if

For years, my practice has been and continues to be focused on helping people have meaningful conversations about things that matter so they can do good things the world, together. This intention inspires me every day in my work with organizations and communities. Underneath this focus is one core value and one belief. The core value is that those who will be affected by decisions have the right to be involved in influencing those decisions if not actually making them. The

A CEO of a hospital to which I consulted once asserted that how he and the managers treated the employees was important because it affected how they treated patients. Although this was years ago, it strikes me as true today as it did then. Only, it is not just in hospitals. It is in all organizations and all sectors. Employees tend to treat customers or clients as they are treated, just as civil servants are inclined to treat citizens as they are treated. Although this dynam